


I Feel Your Warmth (And It Feels Like Home)

by phoenixandphilosopher



Series: As It Seems [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, HP: EWE, Wedding, all the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13831881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixandphilosopher/pseuds/phoenixandphilosopher
Summary: In retrospect, Harry thinks, he really should have seen it sooner.Title is taken from Depeche Mode's ‘Here Is The House’.





	I Feel Your Warmth (And It Feels Like Home)

In retrospect, Harry thinks, he really should have seen it sooner. She’d always been there, right from the very beginning, and it seems so stupid now that he didn’t realise that it was inevitable. From the moment he knew he loved her, sitting in that tent during the war, he’s wondered how he didn’t see it coming. Now, nearly nine years later, as he stands with Ron at his side watching the most beautiful woman he’s ever known walk up the aisle towards him, he laughs a little to himself at his own blindness. 

Growing up, she tells him, she’d always known. _I didn’t want to scare you off, love,_ she’d said when they’d talked about it one night, curled up together at Grimmauld Place. They’d set a fire, turned on the wireless - _anything but Celestina Warbeck, Harry, you know she makes me want to burst my own eardrums_ \- and had settled in for a cosy evening. He’d sat there, one arm around her, left hand resting on her shoulder while the other held his wand, performing charms - simple, pretty things to make her smile. A flock of colourful butterflies; tiny lights that danced through the air in front of them; delicate flowers that bloomed when she laughed. It struck him, suddenly, as he watched the firelight cast a glow across her distinctive hair, that he really should be counting his lucky stars that what they’d started to build during the war when they were so young, so naïve, hadn’t been extinguished after the dust had settled. He’d asked her out of the blue if she’d ever seen it coming, and, frankly, should have known she had. _Of course_ , she had. 

_I knew we’d be all or nothing, I couldn’t rush it. You had to get there in your own time._ He supposes she probably did know, strong-willed as she is. Through her fleeting relationships (and even now he shudders to think of them), she’d known they’d find their way to each other, that it would come to mean more than the friendship they’d found over the years. They’d blossomed, like his conjured flowers, in the ashes left behind by the war. Having to start over, rebuild themselves from the ground up, well, is it any surprise that they’ll never be the same? She’s his family, his best friend. She’s where his world starts and where it ends, she’s his safety net and the person he values most. He’d burn the world for her, she’s _everything._ They’re all each other has, for now, and all they had during the worst times. They’ve faced the worst they’ll ever see, suffered the most they ever will and have made it out alive with their bond intact; he loves the girl in his arms, loves her with everything that he is and there’s no part of him that doubts that it’s the same for her. She’s given up everything for him; he’s turned his back on death to give her a life. 

It hadn’t been easy in the beginning, for either of them. The whole world was still so uncertain, still reeling from the events of the last couple of years, and the pressure of fighting it all has taken its toll on them both. He holds her when she wakes, crying, leans into her when his own nightmares assault his subconscious and she strokes her thumb across the skin of his shoulder, her cheek against his unruly hair, his face pressed into the hollow of her throat. When the reporters swarmed, demanding answers, photos, interviews for them to plaster across the front page of the _Prophet_ they decide it’s too much. They don’t have anything more to give. There are a few months where Molly gets worried, as they increasingly withdraw into themselves. No public appearances, always taking the cloak out, usually declining to leave Grimmauld Place at all unless it’s absolutely necessary. They’re never apart, in constant tandem, with complete refusal to be separated. He remembers the row she’d had with Ron over it, the jealousy in his friend’s tone at their changed dynamic. It had been almost casual, before, and Harry knows part of Ron had always thought they’d fall apart. Instead, they’re permanent now, iron-clad. It’s never going to end for them, and Ron, well, he hates it. Harry remembers the screaming, the fear in her voice as Ron had questioned their need for proximity, suggesting she move into the Burrow, leaving Harry at Grimmauld Place. She’d refused immediately, eyes darting up to the ceiling, where Harry was sitting in the room above with a book. They hadn’t cast _muffliato_ so he’d heard Ron’s anger, followed by her slightly shrill reminder that _the last time he was away from me he_ died _, Ron, I’m not leaving him, not again_. 

Eventually though, as the wounds start to heal, they venture into the real world again. Both return to Hogwarts in the autumn to finish their education, and for the first time have a year free of danger and malice. They have fun, they have a chance to be young, and every second feels like bliss. Afternoons spent in the sun by the Black Lake, studying in the library, early breakfasts in the kitchens that become their Thursday ritual before Transfiguration. Harry discovers a love for Charms, which is partnered with an aptitude he hadn’t known he possessed. She, of course, rolls her eyes as she spreads jam on her toast and smiles at him in amused exasperation. 

“Well, of course you’re good at Charms, you daft oaf,” she tells him, ever matter of fact. “Haven’t you noticed that every other spell that comes out of your wand is a charm? You ended the war with one for crying out loud.” 

He supposes she’s right, and the end result of his newfound Charms ability is an O on his NEWT (Mrs. Weasley cries at the news) and an offer from Professor Flitwick to study under him as an apprentice. When Flitwick retires, a couple of years later, Harry Potter becomes the youngest Charms professor in the history of Hogwarts at the grand age of twenty-two. He feels like he’s found a cosy little space for himself in the world - a danger-free job, all his friends and family, and the woman he loves. It’s hard, for the first year after he starts teaching, but they make it work. They have weekends and snatched dates in Hogsmeade on the occasional weekday, but he’s up to his ears in lesson plans and she’s working full time at a charity supporting victims of the war so weeknights at the Hog’s Head are few and far between. When Professor Slughorn officially retires, however, and a job as Potions Master appears, it’s like all their cards have been dealt into a perfect hand. 

In the years they’ve been together, they’ve always made sure to take time to themselves, to be a couple. They go on dates, sure - out to fancy restaurants, to Quidditch games, to the muggle cinema, but their favourite nights are the ones spent sitting together with a book, or the wireless, or just talking, as he casts pretty spells and they reminisce about the past. He loves those nights the most, as they sit and remember. His favourite memory, without question, is that first kiss after Riddle’s death. There had been a moment of dead calm after the tyrant fell before the screaming started. People swarmed him on all sides, each wanting to touch the Chosen One, but they’d made a beeline for each other. That kiss had been pure joy, instinct even, as she’d crashed into him and he’d held her closer than he’d thought possible. She’d been crying, he remembers, her tears on his face as he pulled back and stared at her. He could see the fear in her eyes - he’d been dead, after all - and after watching her duel Bellatrix… the relief that they’d made it out alive, that it was _finally over_ translated into pure happiness. 

She’d always been beautiful to him. Before, he’d noticed it almost abstractly; her striking hair, bright smile, the way she’d grown into herself as they’d grown up. Later, he sees the beauty in the tiniest of actions - the furrow between her brow as she concentrates, the indulgent look in her eyes as he chatters about Quidditch or his students. Now, looking into her eyes as she draws level with him, as her father gently unhooks her arm from his and presses a kiss to her forehead, it’s like coming home. He can’t help the smile on his face as he answers the question that, at this moment, he’d swear he’s been waiting his whole life for. 

“Do you, Harry James Potter, take this woman, Hermione Jean Granger, to be your lawfully wedded wife?” 

He knows he’s crying as the words leave his lips, can feel a tear trail down his face as her happiness lights up the room. 

“I do.”


End file.
